Dark Fates

The Dark Ones Gaja J. Kos

Chapter 1

The August sun came down hard on Rose's skin as she sat under the barely-existing shadows of the pine trees. There was a soft murmur of traffic coming from the nearby street, but she was alone as she knew she'd be.

The small stone enclosure was her private oasis in the middle of the city, something she had stumbled upon in her early teens and revisited each time she needed to let her thoughts flow or simply take a few breaths in solitude without any outside pressure heaving on her shoulders. She propped her back against the stone wall and looked up. The green of the pine tree branches softly brushed against the vivid blue sky. She always felt alone, even lonely, gazing towards the sky, the branches lazily swaying in the warm summer wind, but she couldn't keep herself from doing it. There was something beautiful hidden behind the sadness.

She still had an hour to kill before the pub meet-up. Rose wasn't particularly enthusiastic about going since it meant having to navigate the packed streets of Ljubljana, but at least it was something to occupy herself with. Things were always moving slow when summer was coming to an end, and this particular summer wasn't any different. She dug a can of Coke out of her leather backpack–it was still quite cool, for which Rose was immensely grateful–and took a long sip.

Maybe we'll get an assignment this evening, she thought while she remembered there was something slightly stiffer in the air when Mark had contacted them about the meet-up. Ending her thought, she let the liquid spread in her mouth before gulping it down, almost finishing the whole can and topping it with a small burp. Rose let out a husky laugh, thinking about the usual shock that came across people's faces when someone so feminine as she dealt out burps so liberallysupes . But then again, when you were part wolf, growling kind of came with the territory.

As the sun hid behind the pine trees, Rose knew it was her cue to go. She pulled her strawberry blond curls into a tight ponytail, brushed off the back of her shorts for any dirt that might have gotten caught up in the fabric, and walked out onto a barely visible path. When she emerged from the small park, reaching the sun-dipped pavement, the heat was almost unbearable. Rose cursed under her breath for not insisting on a much later hour for the meet-up. They were a bunch of supes, after all, it's not like they were afraid of the dark...

She made a few turns and slowly entered the city center. Somehow, the small-but-wants-to-be-a-megalopolis capital of Slovenia was always filled with tourists in the summer months, which was actually a nice change from seeing the same local faces over and over again; however, that didn't alter the fact that she wasn't particularly pleased with just how crowded it got. Too many people on too narrow streets always made Rose uneasy–they weren't a threat, not for the larger part, at least, practically bursting with their shopping-driven tourists, but they didn't exactly leave much personal space either.

It always amused her how Paris never seemed as crowded; the Champs-Élysées maybe, but she never felt confined or anxious. The city knew how to breathe, while Ljubljana was still at the beginning of the learning curve. Consoled by the thought that her return wasn't that far away, Rose made her way through the masses, bypassing the main attractions while still keeping close to the bank for the magnificent view it offered. Rose may not have been among the biggest fans of Ljubljana, but even she couldn't deny that in the right light–or maybe in the right moment–the old town was nothing less than breathtaking.

Rose could hear several street musicians spread across the main and not-so-main streets nearby, their sounds slightly clashing–a textbook example for when she wished she didn't have augmented hearing; the ever-present babble of tourists only emphasizing the sensation. She expanded a bit of her energy to filter the important sounds from the unnecessary, keeping the audio distractions to the minimum. Overly summerish days never agreed with her, her body working in overdrive to keep her cool, but over the years Rose had learned how to compartmentalize her energy between the heat and the distractions while still retaining perfect control. And at that very moment, she was more than glad to possess that particular set of skills.